Glads and Romuleas sprouting

Paul Tyerman ptyerman@ozemail.com.au
Fri, 11 Apr 2003 03:21:52 PDT
>Then I took the bags off of them and got a few more
>seedlings. I have had only 10% germination though but
>it is better than nothing. 

John,

Give them time!!  I don't mess about with ziplocks and stuff now, I just
plant them at the right time, cover them with fine gravel and wait.  Some
things germinate within a week (3 year old Dahlia coccinea seed was up in 6
days, and probably every single one of them by the look of it!!  I wasn't
even sure if it would still be viable.... boy was I wrong!!!!) while other
things take ages.  I have had problems with Arum species from J&J Archibald
where some came up immediately (i.e sown in autumn, came up within a month
or so) and others there was not a sign of so I had mentally written them
off as dodgey seed.  2 autumns later some of them are now putting in a
major appearance (Arum dioscoridis var syriacus for example has put up 5 in
the last week or so).  

I've found that Gladiolus for me tend to have a decent germination the
first year, then a lot more follow the following year so I wouldn't be
concerned at the 10% germination at this stage.  I figure that the 12
months in the ziplock may have got them a tad confused and now it'll take
them a while to sort out which season is right, but I don't know the normal
germination techniques for Gladiolus.  I just know that my planting in
autumn as the days start to cool seems to work fine for them, be they
winter or summer growers.  Either way they have a cooler damp winter which
they can choose to germinate immediately for, or wait until the temps warm
up in spring.

Hopefully this is of some help.

Cheers.

Paul Tyerman
Canberra, Australia.  USDA equivalent - Zone 8/9
mailto:ptyerman@ozemail.com.au

Growing.... Galanthus, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Cyclamen, Crocus,
Cyrtanthus, Liliums, Hellebores, Aroids, Irises plus just about anything
else that doesn't move!!!!!


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